Medicaid sick, state leaders say

House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst diagnosed Medicaid over breakfast this morning and concluded that it’s “an unsustainable federal program that continues to eat up more of our state budget, crowding out other priorities.”

Their statement noted that Medicaid has doubled in the last 10 years and suggested that it will grow to nearly half of the state budget in the 2014-15 biennium.

“Even without Obamacare, the cost of Medicaid will double every decade,” said Arlene Wohlgemuth, executive director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, an Austin-based conservative think tank. “Reform is not only necessary, but it is quite feasible.”

Wohgemuth’s group offered potential solutions:

1. Replacing Medicaid with a state-driven TexHealth program, which would put Medicaid patients into the private market and subsidize the cost of the insurance premium on a sliding scale;

2. Persuading Congress to approve an interstate compact, basically a block grant that would give Texas a lump sum from the federal government to operate Medicaid;